Spaulding Gray's Monstrous Monologue

Spaulding Gray's latest autobiographical stage monologue, Monster in a Box, is intellectual, entertaining theater. Gray describes the monologue, his 13th, as being "about a man who can't write a book about a man who can't take a vacation." Monster in a Box is both brilliant and funny, expertly combining Freud's intellectualism with the scatological humor involved in recounting a total soybean diet--which Gray once experienced while depressed in Houston.

The set for this monologue consists of a large wooden table and chair. On the table sit a glass of water and the box containing the "Monster," Gray's 1900-page unedited novel. Gray sits at the table in a red and blue checkered shirt with black slacks and Chinese silk long underwear which he exposes to us in his remembrance of being thrown out of a museum in Leningrad.

The idea that Gray should write a novel came about in a conversation with his agent, who told him, "You know, I think you have a novel in you." Gray tells the audience that he was skeptical, but decided to give it a try. Gray felt, however, that he was "too extroverted" to be able to write, so he applied to a writers' colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, the same town upon which Thorton Wilder based Our Town when he was a resident there.

Gray has instant doubts about the colony when he is assigned to the "Bates House," so named for the nurse who cared for the man who died of syphills in that cottage. Gray finds that he is unable to write, but feels that he can't leave, bemoaning, "How could I escape? I was in a privileged place."

Gray does escape to, of all places, Los Angeles. And Gray is near his wittiest when he rails sarcastically against the city. He is inspired by the view of distant hills, "that you can see on the seven clear days every year." Gray also becomes fond of "idea lunches," where producers want him to join them to "see if he has any ideas."

Gray recounts his trip to Nicaragua with his girlfriend of ten years, also the director of Monster, Renee Shafransky. He also tells of his AIDS scare and paranoia about death, and harks back to his mother's suicide, the point in the book that he cannot get past. Gray then reminisces about a therapy in which he writes his therapist a check every week in a different colored Crayon.

After returning from a trip to the Soviet Union, Gray is able to write as he never has before, nearly finishing the book before being offered the role as the Stage Manager in Our Town on Broadway. After the play's run, and despite horrible reviews for his performance, Gray finally is able to finish the novel.

Monster in a Box is truly a theatrical achievement. Gray mesmerizes the audience with his story, intelligence and wit. Gray tells us of how he asked one Hollywood producer why he wanted to talk to him. The producer replied that he had seen Gray's monologue movie, "Swimming to Cambodia," and said, "I never thought I could listen to one person talk for two hours. Least of all another man." But Gray pulled it off for that producer, and after listening to Gray for two hours in Monster in a Box, one can only agree with that producer's opinion.

Gray mesmerizez the audience with his story his wit.